I attended a month long Summer Residency at School of Visual Arts, New York this July. The focus of the program was Illustration and Visual Storytelling: Art and Industry. Among other things, we worked on developing our own theme based image series, comics, posters and book cover illustrations. With expert guidance from the teachers like Viktor Koen, Lisel Ashlock, and Tim Hamilton, the company of 17 talented illustrator classmates from around the world, and the crazy, stimulating city itself, the residency turned out to be an experience to cherish for a long time to come.

Here’s a picture of the bunch of us with Viktor Koen on the very last day, just before we bid goodbye to one another. Sara Sally & Alvar Sirlin are missing in the picture.

Here are few of the illustrations I created during the residency. For the theme based image series, I worked on illustrations for classic western Fairy Tales. The book cover illustration was for a short story by Luis Borges called ‘The House of Asterion’ – a retelling of the myth of the Minotaur. And a single page super-panel comic.

Here’s a comic I illustrated with Manta Ray Comics a few months back for an NGO called Sparke. Written by Vidyun Sabhaney, this comic is meant to help school children understand bullying in its various forms, and how to deal with it. The comic will be used in schools in the Himalayan region, which is where Sparke has many of its initiatives. Covers and book design by Prabha Mallya (yes, she made those very pretty end papers :))